Profiles

Juliana Cummings

When we arrived in Nogales, Mexico, seeing the physical border wall was a powerful image. We stayed in a community house and at homestays where we were able to immerse ourselves in the culture; and met with church groups, government organizations, non-governmental organizations, and migrants themselves to understand why people are leaving Mexico, why they are coming to the US, the experience of crossing the border, etc. These people's faces and stories will be in our hearts and minds forever because we were all deeply affected by everyone we met. At the end of the trip we realized what the majority of American's think about undocumented immigrants and their situation by only the governmental definition of law, but what about the moral law? What about the fact that hundreds of people are dying in the desert because of dehydration? Families are being split up because the extreme poverty in their home state leaves them unable to put food on the table? Is that lawful? This experience raised many questions, but more than anything it put a much needed face to the idea of immigration.